ASU right hander Ryan Schroyer might not be in a starting role this year, but the junior closer is piling up the victories nonetheless.
After great starting pitching through the Sun Devils first 13 games, No. 8 ASU utilized its bullpen over the weekend to grab a pair of victories and finish off a sweep of Brigham Young University (1-5).
Schroyer, who said last fall he expected to be a starter, picked up a victory Thursday night when he retired the only batter he faced and the Sun Devils (14-1) won in the bottom of the ninth. Saturday he threw two scoreless innings to pick up his third win of the season in a 6-4 Sun Devils victory.
"That's been my job all year," said Schroyer about holding the other teams down late in the game.
"It just so happened that I got the chance to get the win."
After ASU went down 4-0 for the second consecutive day, four relievers combined for 6.2 innings of scoreless baseball allowing the Sun Devil bats to mount a comeback.
"The team played with some resiliency today," ASU head coach Pat Murphy said. "They got behind but still made some big pitches at big times, gave themselves a chance to win at the end."
Sophomore catcher Joel Bocchi started the comeback, blasting a three-run homerun in the fifth to cut the lead to 4-3. The next inning, sophomore first baseman Jeff Larish tied it with his second homerun of the series, a solo job.
"I came up in some good situations and I'm glad I could do something to help get us some runs in that part of the game," Bocchi said.
In the bottom of the eighth, ASU loaded up the bases and junior Nick Walsh scored the game-winning run on sophomore Frank Mesa's line drive single to left field.
"He's been a great on base guy for three years for us," Murphy said of Walsh.
"He knows how to play the game and he's clutch."
In Friday night's 17-6 win the Sun Devils trailed 4-0 until the bottom of the third when they put a seven spot on the board. The rally was again sparked by Bocchi when he lined a bases-clearing double into left field that gave ASU its first lead at 5-4.
From there on out it was all ASU, tacking on 10 runs over the next four innings with the help of three big blasts. Junior designated hitter Jeremy West and Larish both hit solo shots, and Mesa blasted a two-run blast way over the right field fence.
The bullpen mopped up the dirty work with senior right hander Ben Thurmond picking up the win. In two innings of work he threw just 21 pitches to retire all six batters he faced.
On the season Schroyer has now thrown 8.1 innings of scoreless baseball. He's allowed five hits while striking out 13.
"Today was classic Sun Devil baseball, you can never count us out," he said.
Reach the reporter at casey.pritchard@asu.edu.
